Ready! Fire! Aim . . . .

 . . . is what seems to be the U.S. Administration’s foreign policy stance towards Syria’s President, Bashar al-Assad.



 President Barack Obama responds to journalists
 at the White House. Says no decision has yet been
made concerning a possible strike on Syrian targets
 as of Friday afternoon, August 30, 2013.
 (TV Screen Shot/CNN)

No visible end game has been presented to the American people, as the Commander-in-Chief prepares to give the order to launch cruise missiles over Syrian skies:  There has yet to be a clearly articulated rationale for what President Obama plans to do after the “shock and awe” of the missile barrage have subsided.

What his advisors have told the world up to now is what the Administration won’t do; namely, that the United States is not seeking to depose Assad.  No regime change is anticipated as a direct result of this imminent air strike.

Board to Vote on Interim Superintendent

On Tuesday evening, August 27th, at its regularly scheduled meeting, the Bridgewater-Raritan Board of Education is expected to vote on a contract appointing Cheryl Dyer to the position of Interim Superintendent of Schools. 

Board President Patrick Breslin (right) congratulates
Dr.Michael Schilder upon his retirement, as Assistant
Superintendent Cheryl Dyer looks on at the
July 23rd, 2013 Board meeting.

Ms. Dyer, currently employed as Assistant Superintendent, also became Acting Superintendent upon the resignation of Dr. Michael Schilder who retired this summer.

After her appointment Tuesday evening, Ms. Dyer will assume a dual role, continuing to fulfill her responsibilities as Assistant Superintendent, a position to which she is expected to return, upon the successful resolution of a job search to find a permanent replacement for Dr. Schilder.

Dyer will receive $177,500 as Interim Superintendent, plus an increment of $877.50 as merit pay, should she achieve certain specified goals. This compensation is effectively the same as that of her current salary.

Summer along the C&O

A blue heron on the lookout for fish in the C&O
Canal near Swains Lock, Potomac, Maryland.

Wednesday morning, before the heat and humidity became a deterrent, Pris and I decided to take a walk along the Chesapeake & Ohio Canal that hugs the Maryland side of the Potomac River.  We began at Swains Lock.

The southernmost point of the C&O begins in the Georgetown section of Washington, D.C. and snakes north and west within the state of Maryland until, 185 miles later, it ends at Cumberland, MD, near the Pennsylvania border.

We try to get in at least three-plus miles of scenic exercise when we visit our daughter's family in Potomac.  Swains Lock – sixteen miles north of D.C. – is a short drive away from her home, down a narrow, serpentine access road.

Board in Early Stages of Schools Chief Search

Bridgewater-Raritan Board of Education
Member, Ann Marie Mead (Raritan
Borough Representative), at the July 23,
2013 meeting.  She played a major part in
managing the effort for the Superinten-
dent's survey process.

 

According to a release by Bridgewater-Raritan Board of Education President Patrick Breslin on Thursday, the search for a new Superintendent of Schools to replace Dr. Michael Schilder is now underway.

The process begins with information sessions commencing in September.  Check out this link for the detailed schedule.  There are five sessions in all, but they are not all merely for school administrators and staff.

Two of them are moderated discussion events specifically geared to hear from the general public. The date for those is September 23^rd.  Both will run for an hour-and-a-half.  The first runs from 1 to 2:30 p.m. at the Wade Building.  The second is from 7 to 8:30 p.m. at the High School.

There is one more thing, and it’s easy to do:  Simply sit down at your PC and let the Board of Education members of this school district know what you think.  This opportunity presents itself in the form of a brief, seven question survey.  It is anonymous, and offers you an excellent chance to tell the Board of Education what’s on your mind.

Remember:  The survey is not in the form of a check-the- box or multiple choice quiz.  There are only seven straightforward questions.  Moreover, you have the opportunity to type into the response boxes whatever you wish, especially question six on the survey which is more general in nature.

Go ahead, give it a shot.  Fill out the survey and show up at the public input sessions.  After all, these are your schools, your tax bills, and your cash that is funding them.

An Encounter with Helen Hoens

It was about seven years ago when happenstance caused me to have a brief conversation with a woman who walked up to my seminar discussion table during a break at the College of Saint Elizabeth (CSE), at its peaceful campus in Convent Station, NJ.

Governor Chris Christie leans in on a question
from the audience at the Raritan Valley Community
College in Branchburg, NJ, on April 11, 2013

A large group of adults had registered for a presentation by Michael Christensen and Rebecca Laird, co-authors of a book revolving around the person and teachings of Henri Nouwen.

Nouwen, a Dutch-born Catholic priest who passed away in 1996, was a world renowned spiritual writer who still commands a large following across a wide spectrum of the Christian community and beyond.

Fluent in French and English, Nouwen taught at prestigious learning institutions including Notre Dame, the divinity schools of Harvard and Yale and at other venues.  He was a prolific writer with nearly 40 books to his credit.  He even spent some time in Central Jersey with a few enthusiasts in the Somerset Hills.

From Hedge Funds to Newspapers

Beginning last Saturday, two stunning newspaper developments occurred. 

The first was the announcement that The Boston Globe was being purchased by John Henry, owner of the Boston Red Sox, and formerly the founder and manager of a hedge fund that once held as much as $2.5 billion in financial assets.

The second was the revelation that The Washington Post was purchased by Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon, and a person who, like John Henry, had also managed a hedge fund on Wall Street.

The Globe was picked up from the New York Times Co. for the bargain-basement price of $70 million.  In 1993, the Times Co. bought the Globe for a cool $1.1 billion.

Double-Dipping by School Superintendents

Acting Superintendent of Schools, Cheryl Dyer,
at the July 23rd meeting of the Bridgewater-Raritan
Board of Education.

At the end of July, I received a not-for-attribution e-mail from a faithful reader pointing out that a paragraph in my July 23^rd post, Superintendent Bids Adieu may have been misleading. 

I appreciate receiving that missive, because it gives me a chance to expand upon what I wrote:

In it, I stated that “In New Jersey, a school superintendent is not allowed to retire from one school job and to take another in a different New Jersey school district, e.g., no double-dipping within the state.”

What I had in mind was that a superintendent retired with pay and benefits from a New Jersey School District cannot take another similar, permanent, full-time job in a different New Jersey public school district and still collect both sources of income.